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Checkbook magazine checks out prices at Puget Sound area supermarkets

The latest issue of Puget Sound Consumers’ Checkbook magazine compares local supermarkets for price and quality, evaluates membership warehouse stores and other alternatives to supermarkets, and gives tips on how to save on groceries wherever you shop.

Comparing supermarkets for price and quality

Checkbook compared prices at local supermarkets using a market basket of 152 items, and compared quality based on surveys of Checkbook subscribers. Highlights include:

Compared to average prices at Safeway and Albertsons, the area’s largest chains, prices at Winco were 23 percent lower and prices at Wal-Mart Supercenter were 22 percent lower. For a family that spends $150 per week at the supermarket, a 22- to-23-percent price difference could total more than $1,700 during a year. Even shopping at a lower-priced store just some of the time can result in substantial savings.

Prices at Fred Meyer averaged 7 percent lower than the Safeway/Albertsons average – a difference worth more than $500 for a family that spends $150 per week at the supermarket.

Prices at surveyed stores for QFC were the highest among the area’s four largest chains. QFC’s prices average 8 percent higher than the Safeway/Albertsons average. Within each of the area’s major chains, there wasn’t much store-to-store price variation.

Whole Foods’ prices were the highest in Checkbook’s survey – 55 percent higher than the Safeway/Albertsons average – for the limited number of comparable items found at each chain. But Whole Foods consistently receives high scores from its customers for quality of fresh produce and meat, and many of the items Checkbook could compare between Whole Foods and the other chains were fresh produce and meat items.

In a survey of Checkbook subscribers, QFC received the highest overall ratings for quality among the area’s four biggest chains; Albertsons received the lowest. On the “overall quality” question, 52 percent of QFC’s customers rated it “superior,” compared to 46 percent for Fred Meyer, 39 percent for Safeway, and 25 percent for Albertsons.

For overall quality, small operators scored highest on Checkbook’s survey of consumers. Thriftway was rated “superior” overall by 93 percent of its surveyed customers, Central Market by 90 percent, and Metropolitan Market by 83 percent. However, these stores had prices that were among the highest in Checkbook’s survey. Central Market’s prices were 13 percent higher than the average of the Safeway/Albertsons average, Thriftway’s prices were 16 percent higher, and Metropolitan Market’s were 21 percent higher.

Alternatives to the supermarket

Checkbook surveyed Costco and Sam’s Club, which offered few of the items in Checkbook’s market basket in standard sizes. But when the researchers looked for the same brands regardless of size, membership warehouse stores offered a larger portion of the market basket’s items: Sam’s Club had 51 percent and Costco had 41 percent.

For the items that could be compared, based on unit prices, price per pound for example, the surveyed membership warehouse stores offered dramatic savings. Costco beat the prices at a surveyed Albertsons store by 28 percent.

Most consumers won’t be able to do all their shopping at a warehouse store. An option is to buy what you can at a warehouse store and the rest at a supermarket. Doing that with a Costco store and an Albertsons store could be expected to save a shopper about 11 percent compared to shopping at the Albertsons store alone, according to Checkbook’s comparisons.

Trader Joe’s is another alternative to supermarkets. It has a much more limited selection of products than a supermarket – Trader Joe’s carried 32 percent of the items in Checkbook’s market basket, even when Checkbook substituted store brands for national-brands.

When Checkbook compared prices for its full market basket with fresh produce, meats, and dairy products and national brand nonperishables at the traditional supermarkets to the same market basket items with substitution of Trader Joe’s brands, Trader Joe’s prices were about 7 percent lower than the Safeway/Albertsons average.

When Checkbook allowed substitution of any brand or generic at the area’s big chains in place of national brands, the researchers found Trader Joe’s price advantage disappeared versus Safeway and Albertsons; Fred Meyer beat Trader Joe’s by about 14 percent; and Trader Joe’s was still about 10 percent less expensive than QFC.

Trader Joe’s received higher overall quality ratings from its customers than any of the four biggest chains.

Other topics covered in the Spring-Summer issue of Checkbook magazine are top doctors, roofers, homeowners insurance, where to buy computer equipment, dry cleaning shops, and auto detailers.

Checkbook magazine is available for $10 at Barnes & Noble and Borders. Or become a subscriber at www.checkbook.org/ for $34 for two years.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..